How do you sustain concentration when under pressure and with a cacophony of distractions? One answer may be in your own brainwaves. Specialized neurofeedback equipment and programs, previously limited to clinical settings involving patients with dementia or attention deficit disorder, have now moved big time into the world of competitive sport.
An athlete does some remarkable performance and clearly was "in the zone"...wins a short track speed skating gold medal at the Olympics, shoots a game-wining free throw in the face of thousands of jeering flag-waving fans, kicks a penalty kick to win a soccer match...How is it possible to perform under such extreme conditions, and why are only a few people able to do it?
Sports Training And Neurofeedback Training - Brave New World Of Performance. In times past psychologists could tie-up conferences with a raft of theories concerning the mind and all its remarkable functions. When you consider that a "typical" brain as over 10 billion cells and 4 million miles of nerve fiber networks traveling the depth and breadth of the brain, and where a single brain cell might have as many as 25,000 separate and unique connections with other brain cells, then you're forming an outline understanding of the complexity issue being addressed by neurofeedback training.
Brain waves offer a clue, and a measurement context, for a wide range of mind-body activities including thoughts, blood pressure, muscle tension, heart rate, skin temperature, breathing, sweat gland activity and more.
The question, in terms of neurofeedback training applied to sports training, is "what does this mean, and how can we use it to manage performance outcomes"? It turns out that athletes who have a battery of sensory monitors attached to their body can both learn about the actual state of their body while performing, and also literally "teach" their body to limit muscular tension...slow down heart rate...and minimize the impact of intruding distractions.
EEG Neurofeedback And Mental Distractions - Managing Brainwave And Sports Performance. Brain wave monitoring, or EEG, essentially graphs certain brainwave "outputs". You see spikes as well as lower level brain wave activity. What do these brain wave spike mean? The prevailing theory and "best hunch" goes like this: a brain wave "spike" appears to imply a state of "temporary distraction". The logic follows that an athlete showing elevated or spike brain wave activity has "lost concentration", therefore will not be as able to "step up to the plate" and achieve that "in the zone" high level performance.
Neurofeedback Training - What Happens? Athletes, just like prior mental health patients, get strapped into neurofeedback equipment, with sensors and probes distributed across their body in order to collect physiological data. What happens next is that the athlete learns about the brain wave patterns...and then attempts to consciously manipulate his body and mind into lessening muscular tension, lowering respiration and heart rate.
In other words "being in the zone" is literally a mind-body location that can be identified as well as trained. The goal? Retrain your brain. Modifying brain wave activity and creating a calm body and quiet mind in order to "eliminate monkey chatter" distractions and eventually improve mental focus and resulting sports performance. "Thinking the winning basket" may become a trainable reality.
Questions of Efficacy And Risk - Where Neurofeedback Training May Backfire. Unlike bio-feedback training which is mostly about heart rate and breathing control as well as the outer bounds of muscular tension, neurofeedback training is brain-centered and brain wave "outputs" as its focus. Sound futuristic? Yes, and it does carry some potential "downside" baggage or mental health risks.
Here's the possibility. Neurologists suspect that inside your brain is a network figuratively described as the "executive center"...a higher order decision making area. The theory supposes that messing around with this area, via neurofeedback training, can trigger the onset of depression in certain individuals. Message? Brain re-training can be potentially serious, therefore you'll want professional supervision at all times.
A less-discussed "annoyance" associated with EEG neurofeedback training is the occasional technical glitch, where the transmitter-receiver units receive "stray" signals from nearby radio stations or other transmitters. The only way you'll know whether your neurofeedback equipment is faulty is to have some prior baseline data, or reference points, to compare with once you begin seeing abnormal data on the monitor.
